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Cameras to eye space shuttle safety

The space shuttle’s external fuel tank, which was responsible for the breakup of Columbia in 2003, is getting several crucial safety upgrades for its spring 2005 flight, NASA officials said Thursday.

Columbia exploded when it re-entered the atmosphere on 1 February 2003 when hot gases flooded a hole in its left wing. The hole had been created about two weeks earlier when a chunk of foam fell off the external tank during launch.

At liftoff, engineers had noticed the falling foam, but in a fateful decision that has forced NASA to restructure itself, mission managers did not perform follow-up observations that could have revealed the damage.

Now, a camera will be installed near the nose of the tank to transmit images of the shuttle – and any potential damage from falling insulation – just after liftoff. The camera will stop taking pictures when the external tank is jettisoned from the shuttle about eight minutes into the flight.

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Booster rockets

It will not be the first camera to fly on a shuttle. In 2002, the shuttle Atlantis carried one, but its view was blocked by exhaust fumes when the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters separated about three minutes after launch.

The new camera will be moved to avoid this problem, says Neil Otte, chief engineer on Lockheed Martin’s external tank project. He revealed the changes at a press briefing on Thursday at a factory in Michoud, Louisiana, where Lockheed Martin Space Systems builds the tanks.

Cameras will also be mounted on the booster rockets and on the ground. These cameras may take the place of a camera-carrying boom – robotic arm – that NASA had earlier said could be used to inspect the shuttles for damage. In-flight inspection is one of the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

But in July 2004, a panel charged with overseeing NASA’s return-to-flight progress said NASA was having trouble with the boom’s engineering and might meet the CAIB recommendations some other way.

Cooled tanks

Other changes include the elimination of thick insulating foam from the “bipod fitting,” which connects the external tank to the shuttle and which was the source of the foam that doomed Columbia. Four rod-shaped heaters will take its place to keep ice from building up on the cryogenically cooled tanks. It is important that ice does not build up on the tanks, as it could also fall off and cause damage hitting the shuttle.

Manufacture will also be made more stringent, with two people overseeing a third who sprays on insulation on a certain part of the tank. “That has worked extremely well because you have two sets of eyes watching, and they are more in control of the process,” Otte told New Orleans’ Times-Picayune newspaper.

Lockheed Martin says it expects to deliver the first upgraded external tank by November to prepare for the first shuttle launch, which is scheduled for spring 2005. The company says it will then begin work on a number of other external tanks, which have been in storage since the shuttles were grounded after Columbia.